The overall objective of the Programme Aid Partners' (PAP) Budget Support to Mozambique is to contribute to poverty reduction in all its dimensions. For this purpose, the Government of Mozambique and the PAPs declare their continued commitment to poerate their development partnership, built on mutual accountability and open dialogue on the content and progress of Mozambique's poverty reduction strategy, and based on mutual commitment, trust, respect and confidence. They do so in the interest of the people of Mozambique, aiming to reduce poverty effectively and to sustain development gains. In this regard, both parties are determined to continue to work together in the spirit of the principles of the Paris Declaration of March 2005, as developed in the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) of 2008. The PAPs thus commit to strive for an even higher degree of alignment with the budgetary and accountability system and legislation of the Government of Mozambique.

The Government of Mozambique (GoM) and the Programme Aid Partners (PAPs) finished the Joint Review of the Government’s implementation of the Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty (PARPA) and of the PAPs’ performance in relation to the efficiency of external support. The Review was based on the performance assessment frameworks agreed for 2008, and identified the key lessons which shall be taken into account for the 2009 performance and the 2010 planning and budgeting process.

The 2009 Joint Review (JR) is the last one to be done under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for 2004-2009. Twenty-nine working groups were involved in the review, distributed over five thematic pillars and the evaluation of the PAPs. The groups were made up of Government representatives, the PAPs, other cooperation partners and civil society, which concluded detailed reviews in their respective areas. In this Aide Memoire (AM) the overall assessment of Government and PAPs’ performance, and the issues deserving special attention are presented in Section II. Section III deals with issues related to the implementation of the joint Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The detailed assessment of the Government’s performance in 2008 is presented in Section IV. Section V describes the assessment and recommendations concerning the PAPs’ performance.

The Executive Council of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the third review of the economic performance of Mozambique in the scope of the three-year Policy Support Instrument (PSI). The economic programme between Mozambique and the IMF stayed within the defined limits and all quantitative and structural assessment criteria until the end of June 2008 were achieved. The preliminary data show that the macro-economic policies were also satisfactory in the second half of 2008. All quantitative and structural assessment criteria and structural reference indicators until the end of 2008 appear to have been achieved. The Government achieved its end of year target for Net Domestic Financing due to a favourable collection of domestic revenue. The Bank of Mozambique (BdM) reached and exceeded its end-of-year targets for net reserves and international reserves. Up to the time of writing, the impact of the global financial crisis and its economic effects for Mozambique appear to have been limited, in spite of the continuing significant uncertainties and risks.  Until now, the reviews at macro-economic level have been hampered by poor data quality, and also by the lack of information in Mozambique about the reach and duration of the financial crisis. The next IMF review mission, at the beginning of May, will carry out an in-depth analysis of performance until the end of 2008 and make forecasts for the rest of 2009.

As part of the Joint Meeting and as has been habitual, a meeting was held between the GoM Ministers and the PAPs’ Troika-plus Ambassadors for the discussion of several issues at political level, such as: performance in 2008; plans for the governance area; the mitigation of the effects of the global economic crisis; the business environment; the execution of the Land Law at community level; issues related to the Banco Austral; the plans for the elections and election observation; and the architecture of development cooperation.

This study by OPM focuses on how effectively gender, rights and exclusion are being addressed through the aid instruments, country level dialogue, relationships and decision-making processes through which the Paris Declaration is being implemented.

It is acknowledged by donors that the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) should play a central role in country-level dialogue, implementation, and monitoring of anti-corruption work. At the same time, when supporting UNCAC implementation, the principles of the Paris Declaration should be applied. This U4 Brief explores what this can mean in practice.

While there is considerable consensus on the meaning of aid effectiveness, a common understanding of development effectiveness - and its implications for development policy - remains elusive. Instead, the term is used differently by different actors in different contexts. This Issues Brief aims to make a contribution to thinking on development effectiveness by suggesting four categories under which it can be understood, based on how different aid actors describe and use the term. The four categories consider development effectiveness as: 1) organizational effectiveness; 2) coherence or coordination; 3) development outcomes from aid; and 4) overall development outcomes.

The purpose of this workshop was to increase mutual knowledge and understanding of how practitioners are applying the Paris Declaration’s overarching principles to advance gender equality, environmental sustainability and human rights. The long-term goal is to demonstrate how attention to these issues enhances development effectiveness.

This paper argues that the Paris Declaration is gender blind, and therefore flawed.  It argues that country ownership must not be equated with government ownership, excluding women’s perspectives.  It cautions against alignment with government plans, where gender equality is not an explicit national priority.  It argues that strong, independent and well-resourced CSOs, particularly women’s organisations, are essential for mutual accountability.  It is concerned that new aid modalities such as budget support will only reduce opportunities for real civil society participation in setting national development priorities.

This factsheet argues that the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved if human rights are not addressed. It suggests a number of 'key actions', including building democratic ownership of human rights standards (including principles of participation, accountability, transparency and non-discrimination), aligning development programmes with international human rights commitments, improving donor harmonisation by using international human rights commitments as a common platform, incorporating human rights indicators into results frameworks and employing human rights diagnostic tools in the review of development programmes.

This booklet was produced by UNIFEM to encourage a better understanding of the links between gender equality, public policy formation and development financing. Financing for gender equality means not just securing funding for national women's initiatives and organisations, but also ensuring the development policies and national budgets provide women and men with equal access to decent work, food security and social protection. The booklet provides guidelines to national and international sources of finance and the national budget cycle, and provides guidance to women's organisations in advocating for gender-responsive development planning.

This paper argues that the Paris Declaration is gender blind, and therefore flawed. It argues that country ownership must not be equated with government ownership, excluding women's perspectives. It cautions against alignment with government plans, where gender equality is not an explicit national priority. It argues that strong, independent and well-resourced CSOs, particularly women's organisations, are essential for mutual accountability. It is concerned that new aid modalities such as budget support will only reduce opportunities for real civil society participation in setting national development priorities.